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I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS
by Alan Bradley
Orion, November 2011
295 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 1409114201


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Hit by hard times, Colonel de Luce invites a film company to the large country house where he lives with his family of three daughters. Flavia, the youngest, who has plans of her own for Christmas, is intrigued by the well known actress in the company. Following an impromptu play put on by the actress in the house for the local villagers, things begin to go wrong. Flavia finds the actress murdered in her room. Everyone is confined to the house and subsequently trapped there by a sudden snowstorm. Flavia's interest in science informs both her Christmas experiments and her search for the murderer.

This book creates the world of a bright but lonely young girl living in a large country house. The fact that a body does not appear until chapter eleven suggests that those looking for a conventional murder-mystery novel might be disappointed. I AM HALF SICK OF SHADOWS is something quite different. Indeed it is not even clear whether or not the target reader is a child or an adult and it probably doesn't matter, as its creativity could appeal to any age. On numerous occasions the prose just wafts off into strange ideas – the idea of someone's shoes being coated with an inflammable waterproofing solution or of a picture gallery being flooded with water and turned into an indoor skating rink. The ideas are light and fanciful. The book is about Flavia's world, the murder being in a way incidental, but clever all the same. Just as important are Flavia's scientific experiments and her observations of other people.

The characters are drawn with great sensitivity. The villagers, the vicar, the inspector, Nialla, Daffy and her books, each come and go through the pages – there is warmth to these characters, they feel familiar. Mrs Mullet in the kitchen provides sustenance for all and along with Dogger, the other old retainer, gives that continuous feeling of security so important to a child. Yet the thread of Shakespeare running through the book raises it in some way to another plane.

This book is unique. It is deceptively simple and yet unusual and creative and a wonderful lightness pervades the writing.

§ Sylvia Maughan is a retired university lecturer, based in Bristol.

Reviewed by Sylvia Maughan, April 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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